this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2026
-15 points (27.3% liked)

News

34088 readers
3810 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Exclusive: Survey finds growing number ‘neglecting responsibilities’ or ‘damaging relationships’ as a result

Experts are urgently calling for a national strategy on pornography as a total of 53% of therapists surveyed by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) said they had seen a rise in people seeking help for problematic pornography use that was interfering with their life or driving them to seek out more extreme content.

“Not an anti-porn crusade, that’s absolutely not it, but actually understanding that for some people, a significant number of people, porn does lead to harms. And how do we actually begin to do something and address that?”

top 15 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Bullshit propaganda to ban porn

[–] pwnicholson@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Literally a quote from the article:

“Not an anti-porn crusade, that’s absolutely not it, but actually understanding that for some people, a significant number of people, porn does lead to harms. And how do we actually begin to do something and address that?”

This isn't some pearl-clutching religious group putting out the report. It's a professional group of therapists.

[–] RagingRobot@lemmy.world -2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah of course the propaganda is going to say it's not propaganda lol

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 5 points 1 week ago

Listen to the science.

("Ban porn" is not science, but "porn can be harmful" is)

[–] adhd_traco@piefed.social 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I understand the suspicion, but this seems pretty unreasonable. The arguments are scientific and credible. Or are you saying there isn't a rise in people seeking help for problematic porn use?

There can be problematic porn use and bullshit government overreach hijacking an existing problem, both existing in parallel.

[–] RagingRobot@lemmy.world -1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Porn has been around forever and hasn't really changed too much. Why all of a sudden would there be an issue with it? People have always wanted to stop their vices. There is no crisis. It's just normal.

[–] adhd_traco@piefed.social 10 points 1 week ago

It has changed a lot. It's no longer just magazines, or getting a physical copy of a DVD. It's plastered over the internet a few clicks away, with even more brainwashy algorithms to keep people coming back.

This is a big difference from the perspective of addiction psychology.

Why the rise? Maybe because an entire generation grew up with this kind of porn, maybe because there are therapists for this now and it's not as stigmatized.

Maybe with the male loneliness epidemic it's even more amplified, esp. for misogynists or cluster c men.

Maybe because porn has also been more normalized with PornHub merch, adverts and giftcards.

Really, I feel like if there's a genuine interest to know, one can just start searching the web for porn addiction papers, etc.

Or to argue the point of propaganda, look at the BACP, and other parties mentioned in the article and consider how much sense it makes after.

FWIW the only thing that raises my eyebrows in the article is that they want the government to look at the problem. Expected to a degree from an org like BACP, but they aren't going to invest in community resources. to help with understanding and support first and foremost, and then hold platforms accountable like they should game platforms with lootboxes and such etc.. So I'd give them more credit if they offered the direct ways to help the problem. As the government, without direction only seems to know punish, block, ban.

Food for thought, I'm off to sleep and over and out.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 4 points 1 week ago

The availability of porn has increased understandably compared to 20 years ago, never mind 200 or 2000. "Hasn't really changed much"? what planet are you on?

Do you think it's normal when someone finds themselves so compelled to look at porn that they do it at work?

[–] Perspectivist@feddit.uk 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I'm not for banning porn but it's quite ignorant to pretend it doesn't lead to problematic compulsive use for some people and negatively affect their life. I'm one of those people. Porn addiction is no joke.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

that is so going to go over well.

[–] nocturne@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I never realized therapists were so addicted to porn.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago

I believe it. Especially with AI image/video generation, because it works exactly the same as a slot machine. Put in "hot girl" and pull the lever. No, not quite right, do it again. No, not hot enough, do it again. Yes, she's hot! Huge dopamine hit. Rinse and repeat.

[–] Fleur_@aussie.zone 4 points 1 week ago

Gooners rise up

[–] Disillusionist@piefed.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Shining a light on a problem is good, directing people to resources where they can seek help is also fine. The problem I have with this article is that it steers into policy with statements like:

"Experts are urgently calling for a national strategy on pornography"

and the ambiguous claim that:

"the government aren’t doing [enough].”

What role are they implying that government should have in any of this? By and large it seems like governments generally tend to respond to "addiction problems" with some form of ban. Anti-porn legislation seems to amount to poorly drafted, ill-considered blunt instruments that also seem very likely to cause more problems than the issues they claim to address (and often backed by dubious special interests that clearly have other agendas). They present the claim that it's:

"Not an anti-porn crusade"

But the article doesn't mention any other kind of action or involvement the government might take in response to the problem.

Articles that cover subjects as controversial and consequential as this should be especially careful and informative in the way they discuss them otherwise they run the risk of merely fanning the flames.

[Edited for clarity]

[–] adhd_traco@piefed.social 1 points 6 days ago

Very well put. Thank you.